Phillips: 'Sox players will find Valentine honest and supportive'

Phillips: 'Sox players will find Valentine honest and supportive'

Steve Phillips, former Mets GM, joined Sports Tonight and explained that he thinks Bobby Valentine is perfect for the position as Red Sox manager.

"Bobby is a great student of the game, he's a great teacher. He's a guy that handles veteran players and young players. He can handle a large market, the media. He's great in the community. And, to me, the Red Sox roster is a great fit for Bobby Valentine.

"Bobby's a fixer. He's a guy you bring in when things aren't right... He's the best coach, the best instructor that I ever came across. He's a very positive guy, he knew how to push all the right buttons, make you feel good about yourself. I think the Red Sox players have a perception of Bobby that I assume some responsibility for."

Phillips and Valentine were known for their tumultuous relationship, but Phillips had nothing bad to say about his former manager.

"I think that what I've come to realize is that a lot of the issues that Bobby and I had were my issues, not his issues. I blamed him for the longest time for everything and I've realized, as I've lived my own life of recovery now, that I have to own my side of the road."

Valentine famously called out Youkilis early in his stormy tenure as Red Sox manager in 2012. Remember? "I don't think he's as physically or emotionally into the game as he has been in the past for some reason," Bobby V said of Youk at the time.

The Red Sox traded Youkilis to the White Sox for two not-future Hall of Famers, outfielder Brent Lillibridge and right-hander Zach Stewart, later that season.

The former Red Sox manager (fired after a 69-93 season and last-place finish in 2012), and ex-New York Mets and Texas Rangers, skipper, also managed the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan’s Pacific League for six seasons.

When asked by the New York Daily News if he's being considered for the post, Valentine responded: "I haven't been contacted by anyone on Trump's team."

Would he be interested?

"I don't like to deal in hypotheticals," Valentine told the Daily News.

Valentine, 66, has known the President-elect and Trump's brother Bob since the 1980s, is close to others on Trump’s transition team and has had preliminary discussions about the ambassador position, sources told WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford.

Valentine, currently the athletic director of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., is also friendly with current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who, like Valentine, attended the University of Southern California.